David Greer

The former mayor of Jeanerette entered a plea of not guilty in the 16th Judicial District Court Wednesday after facing multiple charges of malfeasance in office.

Aprill Foulcard was arrested by the State Police and arraigned Wednesday morning on malfeasance charges related to the city of Jeanerette’s eventual fiscal administration mandate during her term in office.

According to the bill of information, Foulcard was charged with five malfeasance charges that include failing to complete Jeanerette’s mandatory annual audit for three consecutive years, failing to remit witness payment fees to off-duty law enforcement agents within 30 days of violation, failing to pay federal payroll taxes and file timely quarterly reports, failing to pay state payroll taxes and file timely quarterly reports and finally failing to fulfill her personal obligation as an elected official not to misappropriate, misapply, convert, misuse or otherwise wrongfully take funds or property of the city of Jeanerette.

Foulcard was no longer in the Iberia Parish Jail by Wednesday afternoon after a $25,000 bond had been paid.

The charges come after years of fiscal problems that had plagued Foulcard’s administration. One of the most notable was the failure of the city to submit audits for three consecutive years, a failure that triggered the state to take over Jeanerette’s finances by appointing fiscal administrator David Greer to the city.

During Greer’s two-year tenure as fiscal administrator, several investigative audits have been released that showed the breadth of financial mismanagement that had taken place.

In October of 2018, an investigative audit was released that showed a failure to pay federal and state government taxes totaling $182,308 or to file required reports from October 2015 to March 2018. After a previous audit finding in 2015 about payroll tax reports, the mayor indicated the City would report its payroll taxes in a timely manner from that point forward. However, the problem was not corrected, according to that audit.

That audit also found that $7,300 in witness fees due to city police officers and deputy marshals was not paid, as required by law. Records showed that Jeanerette received at least $19,200 in witness fees from December 2016 to April 2018, but $7,300 was not disbursed.

Foulcard ran for a second term in 2019 but lost to current Mayor Carol Bourgeois Jr.